


Paint The Fevered Sky

by imogenbynight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Magic AU, Musician!Dean, Neighbors, painter!Cas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-04 19:00:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1789747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imogenbynight/pseuds/imogenbynight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a series of bad decisions that leave him all but estranged from his family, Dean moves to a new city with a plan to turn his life around and figure himself out. But the eccentric artist who lives upstairs drives him crazy, and soon he finds himself pulled into a strange world where nothing is quite as it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spirited

The apartment is stuffy, and Dean's feet kick up dust from the hardwood floors. The window in the bedroom is jammed—something to call the landlord about already—but there's a sliding door that leads out to a narrow balcony, and he pulls it wide to let in a breeze that doesn't exist.

He's used to the heat. That doesn't mean he likes it.

"Windy city my ass," he says. His voice echoes, loud in the empty space.

Chicago was meant to be a fresh start, but the stifling, heavy air of his tiny apartment is at odds with that. Dean might as well still be in his car, gunning down the interstate toward what constitutes his family nowadays. He could aim for Kansas or California, and then he'd at least have the air blasting in through the open window, and some company when he arrived. 

But there's a whole tangled mess of bad decisions in his rear-view, and he needs this time away. They'd welcome him home despite it all, he knows, but he also knows that he needs to sort himself out before he can do that. He owes his family that. A little part of him thinks he owes himself that, too.  


Staring out at his view of a cracked parking lot and the backyard of a house that doesn't appear to have been occupied in at least ten years, he scrubs at his face with his palm. The sun is fading into nothing behind the tower blocks on the horizon, and in the open doorway he sinks down to his heels as he watches the sky slowly darken.

The apartment is darkening behind him. It feels heavy, the quiet pressing at his back. He misses his brother.

Resolutely, he tells himself that tomorrow will be better. He just needs to settle in.

 

* * *

 

Dean's bank account is flagging.

Since he bailed on his old life, he's been trying to scrimp and save every penny, but his car (as much as he loves her) isn't exactly fuel efficient. What money he had has already been squandered on luxuries like food and rent. He doesn't even have a fridge yet. He doubts he'll be able to afford one for a while.

There are a few auto shops in town, but being so close to Detroit, they've had enough mechanics sweep through in recent years looking for work that everyone is fully staffed. His only other previous job was a brief position as a short order cook at friends bar, but both the bar and the friend have since been lost to a fire, and he doesn't see his word being enough to convince a restaurant to hire him.

Basically, he's screwed.

There's always the possibility of selling his few possessions, but he doesn't have much, and he'd rather not do that unless he absolutely has to.

It's as he's walking back toward the apartment building on Tuesday afternoon that he passes a bar, a little brick place called Spirited with a narrow staircase leading up to sunny deck. There's a sign hanging in the window.

>  
> 
> **Musician/s wanted for Fri-Sat-Sun entertainment.  
>  Solo or band. All tips are yours!  
>  Give your demos to Pam or Benny.**

 

There's a big, roughly drawn hand giving the devils horns under the announcement, and when he looks in the window he can see that it looks like the kind of place he'd fit in.

He pawned his guitar back when things had started to fall apart, the first time his dad had needed bailing out of the drunk tank. But he's still got an old demo rattling around in the glove compartment of his car, and he figures he'll be able to find a second hand guitar at a thrift store. Even if he only manages to bring in $20 a night over the weekend, that's sixty dollars in a week, and until he can find a regular job it's better than nothing.

A woman in a black tank top is leaning casually behind the bar, drying a beer glass as she watches a small TV screen on the opposite wall, and when he follows her gaze he sees it's playing _Rock and Roll High School_ at a low volume. Music filters out through the door as a pair of girls in their mid twenties walk out, and one, a red-head in a t-shirt proclaiming that _spoilers suck_ , pauses, holding it wide as she leans back inside.

“Hey Pam, did you still need me to cover for you tomorrow?”

“Nah,” the woman behind the bar calls back, tucking her hair behind her ear, “Chuck had to cancel.”

“Let me know if it changes.”

“Sure thing, sweetheart.”

The red-headed girl grins, waving, and steps fully out of the bar, linking hands with the brunette, and they start off down the road. Dean heads inside.

“Are you Pam?” he asks, heading for the bar, and she smiles, giving him a once over as she puts the glass down on the counter and dries off her hands.

“Who's askin'?”

Something about her demeanor tells him she appreciates a smartass, so he grins wide as he sticks out his hand.

“Dean Winchester,” he says, “your weekend entertainment.”

“Is that so?” she smirks, flicking the towel over her shoulder and shaking his hand, “you got a demo, Dean?”

“Not on me, but I'll bring it by tonight. Figured I'd introduce myself now while you weren't too busy.”

“You in a band or on your own?”

“Just me.”

Still smirking, Pamela appraises him briefly.

“Well, Dean Winchester,” she says, “you up for a challenge?”

She jerks her chin toward the far side of the bar, and he follows her eye line to the small stage at the back. There's a guitar case leaning up against the wall, a low chair and a microphone stand in front. He raises his eyebrows.

The last time he played for an audience was years ago, back when he was still getting his mechanics license, and for a brief moment he worries he's going to make a fool of himself. But he shakes it off, sends Pamela a cocky grin.

“Always,” he says, and heads over.

When he opens the case, he finds a beat up old Ibanez, it's ebony finish faded with age and scratched with the initials of who he figures are all the people who've played it. Running a finger over the letters, he settles on the low chair and chews his lip thoughtfully. Back when he played, he had a few go-to songs that he'd pull out if he was showing off his skills—mostly Zeppelin and Floyd—but considering Pamela's choice of entertainment on the TV set and the huge Dead Kennedy's belt buckle that sits half over her black tank, he decides to go for something she's more likely to appreciate.

Punk was never really his thing, but he'd had a massive crush on a hardcore Stooges fan when he was twenty, and had learned a few of their songs in a fit of desperation. He'd never got the guys attention, but he still remembers the songs. Now, he figures he'll play [Gimme Danger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9_hegaKOaY), and if Pamela is still interested after that, he'll switch to something more his own style.

He can tell the moment she recognizes the song. Her eyebrows shoot up, and a little smirk flickers at the corners of her mouth.

“Not bad,” she says when he stops, “didn't peg you for an Iggy fan.”

“He's not exactly in my top five, but I don't mind him.”

“What d'you play usually?”

“Zep, Sabbath, Metallica... some Bowie. Beatles, Floyd,” he shrugs, plucking out the intro to [Over The Hills And Far Away](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BokEvEqiVA), “if it was released before '95, I probably tried to learn the riff.”

“Anything of your own?”

“Not really,” he says, “nothin' good, anyway.”

“Shame.”

She leans back against the rear counter, studying him a moment, before plucking a pen from the pocket of her apron and ducking down to take a scrap of notepaper out from under the register.

“Which night you interested in?” she asks, popping back up.

“All of them?” Dean says hopefully, “I just moved to town. Kinda need the cash.”

“Alright,” she says, scrawling something down, “Fridays the slot is eight 'til eleven, but you can play longer if the crowds into it. Saturdays and Sundays it's the same deal at night, but if you want to play in the afternoon too, that's fine by me. Last guy used to play from three 'til five, then again from eight.”

“You still want me to bring in my demo?”

“Nah. I can already tell you got somethin',” she says, and leans heavily on the bar to speak in a mock whisper, “I'm kind of psychic.”

“Psychic, huh?”

“Uhuh,” she says, standing up straight, “that blue paint is gonna stain, by the way.”

“What blue paint?”

Instead of answering, she just winks, handing him the slip of paper—the bar's phone number and Pamela's cell—before heading for the rear door. She shoves it open with her hip, and he catches a glimpse of a stockroom and a burly, bearded guy unpacking a crate of Corona's.

“Oh, and if you can't make it,” she calls out, catching the door before it fully closes and leaning back out, “just shoot me a text.”

As he leaves, Dean checks his butt in the reflection on the door. His jeans are clean. His shirt, too.

“What blue paint?” he mutters, and with a frown he heads back toward his building, the slip of paper safe and sound in his paint-free pocket.

 

* * *

 

There's a thrift store downtown, five blocks south of his building, and first thing Thursday morning Dean makes his way toward it with his last $120.

The bell tinkles when he enters, and he's hit with the smell of mothballs and dust. At once he's twelve years old, shopping for Christmas presents for his brother, and he gulps, forcing the memory away.

A guy who looks like white Jesus without the beard leans behind the counter, blinking slowly. Dean heads over to him.

“Hey, man, you have any guitars?”

“Yeah,” the clerk says and Dean waits, raising his brows until he seems to realize Dean's waiting to be pointed toward them, “oh. They're at the back.”

“Thanks.”

He nods, and it isn't until Dean's a few paces away that he seems to remember himself.

“Let me know if you need some help.”

He seems more than a little out of it, and Dean tries not to laugh at him as he weaves through the shelves. Along the back wall, he finds four guitars. One of them is a vintage Les Paul, attached to the wall with a bicycle lock and a price tag that makes him wince. Of the remaining three, one is a ¾ sized classical acoustic, one is a butter-yellow Fender copy, and the other is a dark purple electric-acoustic of an indeterminate make. He reaches out, giving the strings a gentle strum, and pulls a face at how out of tune she is. Looking back toward the counter, he sees the clerk watching him, and he aims a thumb at the purple guitar.

“Can I give it a try?”

“No stairway,” is the guys only response, and Dean laughs.

“Scouts honor,” he says.

Slipping the faded black strap over his shoulders, he plays the low E, turning the peg until the sound is rich and low, and follows through with the remaining five strings until he can strum all six without wanting to tear his ears off.

“You wanna hook it up to the amp?” the clerk asks, wandering over, and Dean nods, holding out his hand to take the lead.

He's almost tempted to play the opening to Smoke On The Water just to be a smartass, but he wants to get a good deal if he can, so he chooses something the clerk probably hasn't heard butchered eight thousand times this week. [Red House](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsbE8P8sL4c) flows from the amp like honey, and Dean chews on his lip, tapping his foot as he plays. The guitar feels good in his hands. Comfortable. Right.

“How much?”

“Sixty-five,” the clerk says, “and there's a hard case that'll fit, if you want. I can throw it in for an extra fifteen.”

Dean adds up. That'll leave him thirty bucks to get through the next week. He's lived on less before.

With some luck, he'll make back most of what the guitar cost him over the weekend, and hopefully he'll manage to sweet talk his way into helping out behind the bar for a little extra cash. If all else fails, he can sell his laptop. It's a few years old, but he doesn't use it that much, and he figures he can get a couple hundred for it. Right now, the gig at Spirited is all he's got going for him. It's a risk, but he doesn't have much choice.

“I'll take both,” he says.

 

* * *

 

When he gets back to the apartment building, he finds himself standing stock-still in the staircase, confronted by a man wearing beige overalls over a tshirt with more stains than Dean can count. He has a shock of messy dark hair with what appears to be a blob of yellow paint over his ear. Dean thinks he looks like the human embodiment of a craft segment on a kids show. Like at any moment he's going to whip out a plastic container full of popsicle sticks and glitter glue and suggest everyone make their grandparents a christmas tree ornament. Except, you know. In a hot way. Kind of.

Judging by the expectant expression on the guys face, he's said something while Dean was having his moment.

“Sorry, what?”

“I _said_ ,” the man repeats, awkwardly shifting the cardboard box in his arms, “you're blocking the stairs.”

“Oh.”

Dean presses flat to the wall, holding his new guitar case flat against his chest, and the guy squeezes past him without another word.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Dean mutters to himself, and digs his keys out of his pocket, heading the rest of the way to his door. His apartment echoes when he walks inside. The guitar will be good company.

He plays until late that night, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his living room, and eventually passes out with a bag of clothes for a pillow. At some point, he's going to need to save up for a bed—an inflatable mattress at the least—but for now, it's hardwood floors and his old green sleeping bag.

It's better than nothing.

 

* * *

 

The guy in the overalls comes to his door on Friday morning, and there are flecks of paint in his stubble. Little dots of blue and white and purple. Dean's fingers itch. He can't stop looking at them as the guy goes on talking, his eyes constantly flickering between the bright blue of his irises and the aquamarine paint caking in the hair along his jawline.

 _That blue paint is gonna stain_ , Pamela had said. Dean gulps. Licks his lower lip.

“I'd appreciate if you could keep the music to a minimum after nine in the evening,” the guy is saying, stiff and humorless as Dean's least favorite high school history teacher, “it echoes up through the floor and it's very distracting.”

“What's your name?” Dean asks, and the guy squints as though his question makes no sense in the current conversation.

“Castiel.”

“I'm Dean.”

“I know who you are,” Castiel says, and Dean raises his brow.

“You know?”

“It's on the bulletin board.”

“There's a bulletin board?”

Castiel squints at him again. It might be intimidating if it weren't for all that paint.

“Did you not look at the building when you moved into it?” he asks.

“Not really,” Dean admits. It was cheap, and the oven worked, and it'd been the only place out of a dozen that accepted his application. That was about all he cared about at the time.

Castiel turns on his heel and walks down the hall, and it isn't until he stops ten feet away and looks back at him with an impatient arch to his brow that Dean realizes he's expected to follow. In the lobby, beside the mailboxes, there's a sparsely used pin board hanging on the wall. Castiel points toward it with a long, paint-smeared finger.

“Everyone in the building has their emergency contact number listed here,” he explains, “except for the man in 3b. He is... disagreeable. If there is ever anything you'd like to inform other residents of, this is where you should post it.”

Looking over the board, Dean can see a few announcements. Most of them are signed CASTIEL NOVAK, APARTMENT 3A. At the center is a slip of paper with the words; NEW RESIDENT (DEAN W.) MOVING INTO APARTMENT 2A ON SEPT. 18

“I take it you live alone?” Castiel asks, turning to look at him, and Dean nods.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yes.”

Castiel doesn't elaborate; just stares. Dean shifts uncomfortably under his gaze.

“So, uh...”

“I need to get back to my work.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“It was good to meet you properly,” Castiel says stiffly, sticking out his paint-speckled hand for Dean to shake. His grip is crushing. Dean winces.

“Yeah, you too.”

Castiel walks off toward the stairs, and Dean rubs at his knuckles before thoughtlessly sticking his hand in his pocket, and when he glances down he's smeared a bright patch of cornflower blue over the bottom of his favorite tshirt.

“Son of a bitch,” he says, looking back up toward the stairs, “Pamela was right.”


	2. Chapter 2

In his cramped bathroom, Dean scrubs the hem of his Led Zeppelin t-shirt and watches soapy water turn blue as it winds down the drain. The suds smell of vaguely of flowers. The stain only spreads. Patchy splotches make their way as high as Icarus' feet, giving the winged man frostbitten toes as he reaches for the sun, and Dean lets out a frustrated grunt. Tosses the ruined shirt into the bathtub.

“Dammit,” he mutters, glaring up at the ceiling where he can hear Castiel stomping around his hardwood floors, dragging what sounds like heavy furniture from one end of his living room to another. For someone who claimed that Dean made too much noise, he's not exactly a quiet neighbor himself.

With a flip of his middle finger in the general direction of apartment 3A, Dean heads for his bedroom to find another shirt to wear.

He's got a gig tonight. He needs to look the part.

 

* * *

 

Dean arrives at Spirited half an hour before he's due to play, and Pamela nods to him in greeting from where she's making screwdrivers for a couple of twenty-somethings at the bar. The back of the low stage is dotted with lights, arranged in such a way that Dean is put in mind of a constellation. As he goes about hooking up to the amp and adjusting the mic stand, he focuses all his mental energy on which constellation it reminds him of. He doesn't get anywhere, but it's better than letting himself consider how many people are already here.

For the record, it's a lot. Dean gulps and looks back at the twinkling lights. Maybe Orion, he thinks, and wishes he could afford to buy some liquid courage. A beer or two would really make this a lot less stressful.

Once he's set up, his guitar leaning against the low chair and waiting for him to play, he glances around to find Pamela beckoning him over to the bar. As soon as he gets there, she hands him a bottle of Texan Star.

“On the house,” she says, and Dean grins.

“Thanks,” he says, raising the drink to his lips, “you weren't kidding when you said you were psychic.”

“Doesn't take a psychic to know when someone could use a beer,” she tells him with a laugh, “any good bartender can do that.”

Dean just raises his brow, and Pamela smirks.

“Ah,” she says knowingly, “you're talking about the paint.”

It's difficult not to react to that. Dean gulps down his drink and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before he asks the burning question.

“So, how'd you—”

“I just know things sometimes,” she cuts him off with a shrug, then considers him a moment, “you made it worse, didn't you? When you tried to get it out?”

Dean stares at her.

“See, now I just kind of think you're a stalker,” he says, and she chuckles, pushing him lightly toward the stage.

“Play well enough tonight and maybe you'll get a real one. A nice fan to follow you around.”

Snorting back a laugh, Dean heads up into the spotlight and grabs his guitar, putting his beer down by the microphone stand. When Pamela turns the music down, switching the rest of the speakers over to pick up the feed from his amplifier, he launches right into a bluesy cover of Black Dog without a pause. Talking to the crowd isn't really his thing. He'd rather let the music speak for him.

By the end of the night, the tip jar is full of singles—and one five from a girl who held his eye contact for way too long when she dropped it in—and he's feeling better than he has in months. He plays past eleven, and hangs around even longer, sitting at the bar and chatting with the bartenders—Benny, the burly guy he'd seen in the back on Tuesday, and Aaron, whose winning smile and tendency to flirt see him ducking out of the conversation early to make plans with a guy who's been making eyes at him since he got here.

“Looks like they liked you,” Benny tells him, scrubbing down the bartop while Dean counts his cash—thirty-four dollars—and sticks it in his wallet.

“Color me relieved,” Dean says, “I really wasn't looking forward to living off store brand ramen next week.”

Raising an eyebrow, Benny stops cleaning the bar and looks up at him.

“Pam said you were new in town.”

“Been here a week,” Dean says, “give or take.”

“Still looking for a day job, then?”

Nodding, Dean drains the last of his beer, and Benny takes the bottle.

“Been to every last auto shop this side of the city, but no-one’s hiring,” he admits.

“Well, if you’re up to it, we could use someone on Wednesdays,” Benny says, “you worked a bar before?”

“A little,” Dean says, perking up, “been a couple years though.”

“It wouldn’t be much,” Benny tells him, “maybe a six hour shift. But people round here tip pretty well.”

Pamela makes her way over before Dean can reply, and she pets Benny's arm to squeeze past him.

“He'll take it,” she says, and turns to Dean, “we'll see you on Wednesday. Six o'clock.”

Huffing out a low laugh, Benny looks at Pamela.

“This your psychic thing, or are you just being presumptuous?”

She winks.

“That's for me to know.”

“I'll take it,” Dean says.

“Knew it,” Pamela says, and Benny shakes his head, laughing under his breath as he heads toward the last few people in the bar to let them know it's closing time.

“You know anything else about me?” Dean asks, and Pamela looks at him briefly, considering.

“Hmm,” she says, eyes twinkling, “I know a couple of things.”

“Like?”

“For one, there's something you're worried about,” she says, eyes narrowing a little as she studies him, leaning on the bar, “something to do with your father. Where he is... you put him there?”

Dean gulps and nods.

“But it's... hmm. You made the right choice.”

“Okay,” Dean says, his eyes prickling uncomfortably, stomach twisting at the memory he's trying so hard to run from. He's grateful when she moves on.

“The other thing is kinda weird,” she admits, and shakes her head, smiling slightly, “I'm getting... okay, this is going to sound ridiculous. It's like... I'm seeing you, standing next to yourself, and... you're...”

She lets out a laugh, cheeks tinged slightly pink as she leans in.

“You're hitting on yourself,” she tells him, almost in a whisper, and Dean blinks slowly.

“Right.”

“Well, it's obviously symbolic,” she says, waving a hand, “that happens sometimes. But I've got no clue what it could mean.”

“It kinda sounds like you’re calling me a narcissist.”

Pamela just lifts her shoulder, still smiling.

“If the shoe fits,” she says, and grins wider at Dean’s feigned offence.

He heads home after that, carrying his guitar case and humming the tune to Tales of Brave Ulysses under his breath. The building is quiet when he arrives, and he sleeps soundly.

 

* * *

 

He plays at the bar the next two nights, and by the end of Sunday he's made just shy of a hundred and fifty bucks. He sticks it in an old envelope that used to contain an invoice from the hospital and shoves it up on the high shelf in his closet. On Monday morning he decides it’s time to buy a few things.

Despite Pamela's insistence that her readings always amount to something, Dean sees no sign of any doppelgangers at the supermarket, and hasn’t felt the urge to check himself out in any mirrors.

It's as he's heading back into his apartment with his groceries and an inflatable mattress tucked under his arm that a tall, skinny dude in a v-neck low enough that it's amazing his belly button isn't visible calls out to him from the side of the road. Dean stops to look back at him. He's running across the street, carrying a package wrapped in brown paper. Dean looks over his shoulder to make sure the guy wasn't talking to someone else.

“Please tell me you live here,” the guy says, his accent decidedly British, and Dean hefts the mattress up a little when it starts to slip.

“Yeah, I do.”

The guy sighs in relief.

“Do you know Castiel?” he asks. Dean just manages to stop himself from frowning at the mention of the shirt-ruining floor-stomper.

“He lives upstairs,” he says flatly, but the guy beams at him.

“Wonderful. He’s not home at the moment, but it was imperative that I get this to him before I leave town. I don’t suppose you could--”

“There's a table under the mailboxes in the lobby,” Dean tells him, and the guy shakes his head.

“I really wouldn't feel right leaving it unattended,” he says, “it's not exactly valuable, but it's... sentimental.”

“I don’t have any free hands,” Dean says, indicating his groceries with his chin. “sorry.”

“It’s light,” the guy counters, “I can put it in one of your bags. You won’t even know it’s there.”

Dean does not want to. His conscience insists that he does. With a sigh, he adjusts his hold on the grocery bag.

“Alright,” he sighs, holding it out.

“Thanks,” the guy says, carefully putting the package on top of a pack of tiny snack pies, “really. It’s a great help.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

Without another word, the guy winks at him and hurries back across the street, climbing into a glossy black Prius. Glancing down at the package in his bag, it occurs to Dean that he’ll have to talk to Castiel again. He’s not nearly as disappointed by the thought as he wants to be.

 

* * *

 

It’s a few hours later that Dean hears the telltale thumping of footsteps upstairs, and he pushes to his feet from where he’s been sitting on the living room floor, fiddling with an old song he’d been working on years ago before he’d sold his old guitar. His fingers haven’t quite built up their calluses yet, and they’re stinging with the pressure of playing so much over the past few days. He’s glad for the short reprieve that taking Castiel his parcel will give him.

Upstairs, a stout, bearded man stands in the open doorway of 3B, squinting at the door across the hall, and when he sees Dean he eyes him suspiciously before shutting his door and locking it with a harsh click. Castiel wasn’t kidding about that guy, Dean thinks, and knocks on the opposite door.

It’s only a moment before he hears someone shuffling on the other side, then a pause as he presumably looks out through the peephole. When Castiel opens the door, he looks confused, but there’s something almost pleased there as well, and Dean bites on the inside of his cheek.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel says before Dean manages to get anything out, “do you need something?”

“Your friend left this with me,” he says, holding out the package, “you weren’t home and he said you needed it.”

Castiel eyes the parcel warily.

“Friend?”

He says the word like it’s a foreign concept. Dean shrugs.

“Yeah... uh. British guy. Yay high,” he lifts his free hand vaguely, “Gordon Ramsey in a v-neck?”

Castiel’s eyes widen a little, and he looks almost shell shocked when he realizes who Dean is talking about.

“Balthazar,” he all but whispers, and Dean pulls a face.

“Balthazar?” Dean repeats, “Christ, what a name. His parents were worse than yours.”

“We have the same father,” Castiel says, sounding a little dazed as he stares at the package in Dean’s hand but makes no move to take it.

“That guy was your brother?” Dean asks, surprised. If there’s any family resemblance, he can’t see it. Unless it’s in the slightly blunt manner.

“We have the same father,” Castiel repeats. Touchy subject. “He shouldn't have left that with you.”

“Yeah, well. He did,” Dean shoves the parcel toward him, “kind of wouldn't take no for an answer. Dude has boundary issues.”

Finally, Castiel takes it. Looking distractedly at the parcel, he steps back into his apartment, and Dean ends up with the door shut in his face. Not a word of thanks.

“You're welcome,” he calls out pointlessly before stalking back downstairs, muttering under his breath, “you dick.”

 

* * *

 

For hours after, he can hear those distracting shuffling feet, and then something that sounds a lot like a home movie playing loud. The rush of water and the crunch of leaves. An occasional voice in an unfamiliar tongue. Probably what Balthazar was delivering, he thinks. Old family videos or something. The package was about the right size, after all, and he had said it had sentimental value.

The noise echoes around Dean’s living room, bounces from the bare walls, and it’s easy enough to ignore while he’s practicing the songs he’ll play at his next gig. But it’s still going on when he leaves to get some take out, and then when he gets home and crawls into his sleeping bag.

At almost midnight he presses his hands over his ears with no effect and groans loudly before forcing himself to get up. He pulls on the closest clothes he can find--his ruined Led Zeppelin t-shirt and his old jeans--and rubs his eyes as he makes his way out into the main hallway of the building.

He knocks on Castiel’s door for almost five minutes with no response before giving up and trying the doorknob.

When the door swings open, he steps through, tentative.

“Hello?” he calls out, and his voice carries, echoes out far further than it should. Stepping properly inside, he leans forward, looking to the right, toward where the bedroom and bathroom should be, but there are no lights on. He heads in the opposite direction, stepping around the countless tins of paint that cover the floor. This guy’s a fucking nutjob, he thinks.

But when Dean walks through the archway into the living room, he forgets why he was angry. He forgets a lot of things. The room is bright and awash with color. Paint runs down the walls in rivulets, and the opposite side of the room seems to stretch out into a landscape of mountains and forest. Stretching down onto the floorboards is a painted river so realistic he could swear he can almost hear it.

There's movement, suddenly; a flash of something dark in his periphery, but when he looks he just sees more paint. The shape of a bird in the azure sky painted over the wall.

“What are you doing here?”

Dean jerks in surprise, and finds Castiel staring at him from the opposite side of the room. He's breathing heavily as though he's been running, and instead of apologising for breaking into the guys apartment in the middle of the night, Dean says the first thing that comes to his mind.

“Where the fuck did you come from?”

Castiel squints.

“I've been in here all night,” he says, and Dean shakes his head, stepping out of the archway and craning his neck to see if there's another room somewhere back there. A balcony, maybe. A walk in closet. There's nothing.

“Huh,” Dean says, and looks back at Castiel.

He's standing a little oddly, Dean thinks, as though he's hiding something behind his back, and Dean leans to the left. Castiel shuffles in place, but not quickly enough. Dean’s eyes widen. He takes a half step back.

“Dude, is that a _crossbow_?”

“No.”

“Yeah it is,” Dean argues, even as a little voice in the back of his mind is telling him not to pick a fight with the guy holding the deadly weapon, and Castiel looks as though he’s about to say something in reply when there’s another flicker of something up on the wall. When Dean glances up the bird is gone.

“What the--” he starts, but when he looks back down to Castiel the question dies in his throat. There, painted on the wall behind him, halfway out from behind a copse of trees, is a figure that wasn’t there before. A tall shape that doesn’t quite register as a person, but certainly isn’t an animal either. He stares at it in confusion, and Castiel looks over his shoulder toward it before glancing back at Dean.

“You should go,” he says, letting the crossbow drop from behind his back.

Dean gulps.

“Uh…”

“Now, Dean.”

“Yeah. I’m uh… sure. Sorry.”

Backing up, Dean bumps into the wall behind him, and for a split second he feels the tacky touch of wet paint on plaster before it gives way to open air. Stumbling, he lands on his ass. His fingers press into cool grass and damp earth, and when he looks up he doesn't see a painted roof. He sees an endless sky. The figure from behind the trees is moving, in plain sight, and Dean hears the voice that had been echoing through the floorboards.

He barely has a moment to freak out about it before Castiel grabs hold of his arm, hauling him to his feet and shoving him roughly backward. Dean feels his body lurch and finds himself back in the hallway of Castiel’s apartment. No grass in sight.

Castiel is just standing there in the living room, staring at him and gripping the crossbow. Dean blinks, and the figure behind the trees seems to move forward, and Dean scrambles back down the hall without another thought, running from the apartment and back into his own. He doesn’t stop until the chain is in place on his door.

Paint fumes, he tells himself shakily. But he can still hear the river, and he can still hear that guttural language in a voice that isn’t Castiel’s, and when he looks down at his hands there’s dirt on his palms.

“What the fuck?” he asks aloud, and tries to pull himself together. He decides a shower will clear his head. Make the panic in his chest stop.

He’s wrong.


End file.
